Masada - The archeological “evidence”

The results of the excavation between 1963 and 1965 in many aspects supported the account given by Josephus. As it was the only literary source researchers could rely on, they compared the detailed description of the physical site witnessed and described by Josephus, and cited its discrepencies and mistakes.

One of the most interesting findings was some ostraca with inscription of names, including “Ben-Yair”, identical with the name of the leader – quoted by Josephus. Interpretations of these findings agreed that it supports the suicide account of Josephus, where the men who were fighting the Romans decided the suicide-order by casting lots for themselves by using the ostraca.

Invoking further political controversies was the finding of remnant of skeletons. In October 1963 the skeletons of a number of people were discovered at two locations: three skeletons were found in the lower terrace of the northern palace-villa, a location described by Josephus as the site of suicide, and twenty five additional skeletons in one of the caves at the northern end of the Masada cliff.

This news was immediately reported by all news media and speculations started that the remains were most probably of the fighters of Masada.

Yadin’s 1966 Masada book reports the finding of the twenty-five skeletons, and by process of elimination he states that these can only be of the defenders of Masada.

In March 1967 Shlomo Lorentz, representing the ultra-orthodox party (Agudat Israel) in a speech in the Knesset demanded that the skeletons found on Masada be given a Jewish burial. The minister of culture and education, A. Jadlin not being able to decide delegated the issue on to the Knesset committees. Yadin was consulted and the committee stated that it was a matter of historical and national importance to determine the identity of the skeletons. Long and serious discussions started as to the manner in which to establish the identity of the skeletons, while the orthodox party pushed for fast resolution.

The issue was not resolved by March 1969 when Yadin announced that he is opposed to the public funeral ceremony, and stated that the evidence regarding the identity of the skeletons was not conclusive enough, and he lacks definite proof. Even the place of the planned burial ceremony was questioned, and opinions differed as to Jerusalem (where some of the rebels originally escaped) or Masada (where they died) should be the place.

Again, the committee was asked to decide. By the entire Israeli government was involved in the debate and took sides. By July 1969 the committee decided that the Israeli Military Rabbinate should be in charge of the burial. On July 7, 1996, almost five years after the discovery of the skeletons they were buried in a full and formal military ceremony, not on Masada, but near to it, on a place called “the hill of the defenders”. Evidently controversy regarding the skeletons lingered on, mainly in professional circle where scholars attacked the methods implied for the identification of the remnants.

The symbol of Masada was further re-enforced by the excavations, and Israeli chief-of-staff and politician Moshe Dayan wrote the following in the introduction of the book Masada edited by him:

“Today, we can point only to the fact that Masada has become a symbol of heroism and of liberty for the Jewish people to whom it says: Fight to death rather than surrender; prefer death to bondage and loss of freedom.”

The signal value of heritage possession was also the point made by soldier-scholar-mythmaker Yigael Yadin, to Israeli army recruits sworn in at Masada:

“When Napoleon stood among his troops next to the pyramids of Egypt, he declared: “Four thousand years of history look down upon you”. But what would he not give to be able to say: “Four thousand years of your own history look down upon you”.

The “Masada experience”

The strong and forceful image of Masada, as a major national symbol for Israel, performed on all levels of national consciousness: excavations; militant Zionist youth movements; the Israeli army, who picked Masada as the location for their famous swearing-in ceremonies that echoed “Masada shall never fall again”; history books; media; films; tourism; and the actual experience of the climb to the ancient fortress on the visually dramatic trek above the Dead Sea, deep in the Judean desert.

The Masada myth …. re-visited

The image of Masada as the main and only national site of Israel changed suddenly in June 1967, following the Six-day war. Israel emerged victoriously and gained considerable territory, including East Jerusalem, and free access to the Western Wall, surrounding the plateau where once the Temple stood.

During the early 1970’s a change attitude emerged towards the Masada story as the “last stand” approach lost its relevance in the new political context. The original narrative of Josephus appeared more frequently in print, and guidebooks to Masada. As the critical interpretations surfaced the stereotypical presentation of the Masada story became multivocal.

In the 1980’s the interpretation of the lesson offered by Masada shifted again, and the importance of “negotiation” between the Romans and rebel leader Elazar Ben-Yair received more emphasis. Gradually Masada lost its place as a symbol for the State of Israel, and became more of a tourist attraction.

Masada's significance further diminished in the Israeli mindset, arguably part of the much-decried general disregard for national heritage by the younger generation. Between 1995 and 1998, the number of visitors to the site slumped 26 percent, and according to the site’s marketing director the problem is not foreign tourism but a lack of interest among Israelis.

Masada now hosts only the occasional Engineering Corps ceremony; the Armored Corps uses its own memorial compound instead, and the Paratroopers prefer the Western Wall or Ammunition Hill, all easier to reach and relevant to contemporary Israeli battle triumphs.

“The Masada complex” / “Masada syndrome"

The expression appeared in the mid 70's and was quoted in Newsweek's July 12,1971 p.19 in Stewart Alsop's weekly column. A high official in Washington (a few years later it became public that the official was Dr. Joseph Sisco, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asia) accused Golda Meir, then Israeli prime minister of having a "Masada complex".

The political background of the birth of this expression was US support for the Soviet Union's interest to re-open the Suez Canal, where as Israel, having military units on one side of the Canal did not want to comply with the demand.

A political analyst (Jaacov Reuel) of the Jerusalem Post (August 3, 1971) wrote the following.”the alleged complex, if it exists, is not so much a personal affliction of Mrs. Meir but a national neurosis.." It was an often-returning accusation against Israel by US officials until the Yom Kippur war in 1973 October. At one occasion in March 1973 Golda Meir retorted: "You, Mr. Alsop.you say we have a Masada complex. It is true.we have a Masada complex. We have a pogrom complex. We have a Hitler complex."

To this the Hebrew literary critic Robert Alter responded, "Torch-lit military ceremonies on top of Masada are, I fear, a literal and dubious translation into public life of a literary metaphor and a Prime Minister's subsuming Holocaust, pogroms, and Israel's present state of siege under the rubric of Masada might be the kind of hangover from poetry that could befuddle thinking on urgent political issues."

Besides the concept of the Masada complex in an abstract political sense, there was an attempt to make it operational as a psychological term under the more clinical description of "the Masada Syndrome". A psychology book (Daniel Bar-Tal, Stress and Coping in Time of War, 1986. New York, Brunnel/Mazel p. 34) gives the following explanation: "the Masada Syndrome is a state in which members of a group hold a central belief that the rest of the world has highly negative behavioral intentions towards the group."

By now, the “Masada complex” is used as a synonym suicidal political psychology.

"Explaining Saddam", a the statement of Dr. Jerrold M. Post, MD, Director of the Political Psychology Program, George Washington University presented before the House Armed Services Committee in December 1990, on the brink of the US going to war with Iraq. "Saddam has recently been characterized by Soviet Foreign Minister Primakov and others as suffering from a "Masada complex", preferring a martyr's death to yielding."

Interesting to note that the full sentence in the original context the Saddam text carries a different meaning: - but nonetheless, has no connection to Israel, as it says, “Kuwait is my Masada”.

Suggested readings

Nachum Ben-Yehuda, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel (1995)

Magen Broshi, Archeological Museums in Israel: reflections on Problems of National Identity, In Museums and the Making of “Ourselves”, The Role of Objects in National Identity, Flora E. S. Kaplan, ed. pp 315-331, (1996)

Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (1995)

Shaye Cohen, "Masada: Literary Tradition, Archaeological Remains, and the Credibility of Josephus," Journal of Jewish Studies 33 (1982).

Raymond Newell, "Suicide Accounts in Josephus: A Form Critical Study," Society of Biblical Literature 1982 Seminar Papers

Robert Paine, "Masada: A History of A Memory," History and Anthropology 6 (1994)

Baila Shargel, "The Evolution of the Masada Myth," Judaism 28 (1979)